Film Festival promise: “We’ll be back!”

Friday

Jun 22, 2007 at 2:00 AM

By Gabriella Burnham I&M Staff Writer

Before the closing night film “Rocket Science” screened Sunday, Nantucket Film Festival executive director Jill Burkhart squelched any gossip that it would serve as a grand finale to the 12-year-old festival.

“We’ll definitely be back next year. Don’t believe the rumors!” said Burkhart, her announcement met with immediate applause from the sold-out audience.

She said she was also pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Showtime Tony Cox competitions.

In the Best Screenplay Competition, Marc Arneson’s script “Peck,” about an angst-ridden teenager whose parents force him to compete in the high school science fair, took the award. Best Screenwriting for a feature film went to Nate Meyer’s “Pretty in the Face,” which exposes the nature of true beauty through a plain-looking girl’s story. Dan Brown’s short film “The Pipe,” about two eccentric security guards assigned to watch a radio personality who has been buried alive, won Best Screenwriting in a short.

The Adrienne Shelly Excellence in Filmmaking Award, which is awarded by the film festival exclusively to a female filmmaker, went to Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern for their documentary “The Devil Came on Horseback” about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

As far as NFF awards outside of the Tony Cox Competition, the Best Writer/Director Award again went to Meyer for “Pretty in the Face.” “Row Hard, No Excuses,” a documentary directed by Luke Wolbach about two middle-aged men’s quest to win the Atlantic Rowing Challenge, won Best Storytelling in a Documentary Film. The Audience Award for Best Feature went to “Canvas,” directed by Joe Greco and starring Joe Pantoliano. The Audience Award for Best Short went to “Second Life,” directed by Katie Van Fleet.

Finally, the Teen View on NFF Award, chosen by six students from The Nantucket New School, went to the short “Caroline By Committee,” directed by Mary Haas.

Burkhart announced more positive news at Friday night’s Latenight Storytelling: Rick Ulmer, owner of the Rose & Crown restaurant and pub, had signed a deal to buy the historic Dreamland Theater, which has sat dark and silent for the past two years.

“We’ve got our theater back!” said Burkhart to start off a night of often explicit, but unanimously hilarious stories about obsession.

But the real highlight of the festival was this year’s honoree at the NBC Universal Screenwriter’s Tribute, Robert Benton.

Benton, the Academy-award winning director and screenwriter of such films as “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “What’s Up Doc?” and “Bad Company,” also shared his superfluity of filmmaking knowledge at “In Their Shoes” (in addition to the tribute on Saturday night) on Sunday morning at Bennett Hall.

Hosted by former New York Times film critic Janet Masslin, Benton shared facts about his career, his personality, his successes, and even his shortcomings.

“If there’s something I have to learn, it is to get rid of my preconceptions. If I could find that in my real life, I’d be a better person,” said Benton, who was credited by TIME magazine film critic Richard Corliss at Saturday night’s Tribute as being one of, if not the most, influential directors/screenwriters of our time. He added that Benton’s kindness and understanding personality as a director is well-known in the film industry.

“ ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ pioneered the conception of the relatable antihero, said Corliss. “After ‘Bonnie and Clyde,’ films could have gone anywhere and done anything. So why didn’t they?” he half-joked, half-questioned. “That’s a whole different speech.”

On Sunday, Benton tipped the audience on to his personal movie-making criteria: Minimalism, and an honest, realistic reflection of human nature.

“I didn’t like ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ as much as everyone else. They spend too much time patting each other on the back and laughing. I want to write about the tension of friendship,” said Benton. For that reason, he said, he cannot write certain types of scripts:

“I could never write a James Bond movie. My James Bond would be the kind of guy who screws up. But that’s not what you want in James Bond. You don’t want him to die early on.”

The question that seemed to repeat at both events, though, had to do with today’s youth: How can we get them to appreciate films as powerful and relevant as Benton’s?

Benton laughed and answered jokingly, “Lock them in a dark room with a VCR and limited number of DVDs. Beat them only rarely.”

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